Unhappy with principal, teachers mull strike

FDE official says they will investigate issues but faculty not allowed to form unions

ISLAMABAD: Tense calm prevails at one of the largest government-run colleges in the capital where academic activities were partially disrupted over the past week.

Some expect additional boycotts by the teachers at the college who are at odds with the principal.

The teaching faculty at the Islamabad College for Boys Sector G-6/3 does not want to work with the principal, Rafiq Sandelvi, due to his alleged humiliating attitude toward staffers and indifferent attitude towards various administrative and teacher issues.

The teachers have been demanding that either the principal be transferred out, or the entire faculty at the college is transferred to other institutions.

The college is one of the oldest and largest in the capital with around 8,000 students currently enrolled in its various shifts and sections. Justice Athar Minallah of the Islamabad High Court and former Balochistan Chief Muhammad Aslam Raisani once studied at the college.

Various administrative issues have perturbed the faculty for quite some time and they had collectively expressed their concern at the various meetings with the principal. But the teachers say the principal, instead of addressing the issues, has started targeting and threatening them.

After the principal transferred two teachers who were at the forefront in raising concerns, the concerns turned into agitation last week.

The faculty on November 8 went on strike over the transfer of teachers in the middle of the academic session and to institutions which have no seats for the subjects the transferred faculty members teach.

They demanded that the transfers of the two senior professors should be reversed and the principal should be removed.

A teacher, who did not wish to be named for fear of reprisal, said that the dilapidated condition of the day care centres in the primary section was repeatedly raised with Sandelvi, but he did not do anything in this regard.

Moreover, toilets in the staff room for female primary teachers too have been chocked for more than three months, yet nothing has been done to fix them, the teacher added.

A computer lab set up for the junior section had been handed over to a scouts organisation, violating rules, teachers said.

The faculty also alleges financial embezzlement in purchasing various articles and a misappropriated student fund.

A recent audit report found that four colleges retained and utilised receipts worth Rs38.952 million in violation of rules. The Sector G-6/3 college was among them.

On November 13, Federal Directorate of Education Director General Hasnat Qureshi, who oversees schools and colleges in the capital, visited the college. Finding the teachers on strike, he told them that he would look into their unresolved issues including the transfer orders for teachers.

On his request, the faculty called off its strike for the day.

However, nearly a week after his visit, the matter remains unresolved.

Teachers at the college said that they felt as if Qureshi, like the principal, had hoodwinked them.

The staff said they are now considering various options including a resumption of their strike and protesting against the vindictive transfers.

“The teachers who have been transferred were teaching degree classes, while in their new positions they will be teaching secondary classes and there are no senior teachers to teach degree courses at the college anymore,” said Rasheed Khan, one of the teachers who was transferred.

“I used to teach sociology while at the college. Where I have been transferred, the subject is not offered,” he added.

However, Qureshi said that the transfers are an administrative issue and it should not be used by teachers as an excuse to protest or strike.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2017.